Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Bouncing Back Productively from Vacation

I've just returned from a fantastic 11-day trip to France with my family, and therefore, I thought it would be very appropriate today to blog about strategies regarding the return to work after vacation. Lydia Dishman has a terrific article on the subject at Fast Company's website. Specifically, I thought she had several good tips related to email. She cites several executives who recommend using the long airplane trip home or the evening before the first day back at work to chug through all those emails that accumulated while you were gone. Second, Dishman describes a tip from Andrea Wasserman, an executive at Nordstrom. Wasserman explains that one should take time after a vacation to "ask yourself some honest
questions about your tasks and to-do list. 'What activities started to
creep into your work day that aren’t a high return on impact or aligned
to your strategic goals?'" Finally, Wasserman also recommends trying to capture the key insights or ideas that came to mind as one relaxed on vacation. Get those thoughts down on paper before they slip your mind!

Michael Roberto

The Great Courses

About Me

I am the Trustee Professor of Management at Bryant University in Smithfield, RI. I joined the faculty after serving for six years on the faculty at Harvard Business School.

My research, teaching, and consulting focuses on leadership, with a particular emphasis on decision-making and teams. I have published two books based upon my research: Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes For An Answer (2nd edition to be released in May 2013), and Know What You Don't Know (2009).